The Murder Of Gonzago

‘Who’s this person? A nobleman, did you say? My dear Hortense, you are not by any chance talking about-’

‘No!’ She reached out and covered his mouth with her hand. ‘Not another word, Ducky! No, don’t speak! Please, no! No more questions. Toute verite n’est pas bonne a dire. But one thing I will say. The murder was entirely justified. This particular murderer does not deserve punishment. I assure you this particular murderer did the right thing.’

Tears had sprung in her eyes. She sniffed. She glanced up, at Stephan Farrar’s photograph.

How terrible not to be able to tell the truth!

4

Insomnia

So that’s that, Louise Hunter thought. It’s all over. No one will ever know now. What a relief. Thank God for cremations. Obliteration of all the vital evidence. Of all evidence. Reduced to cinders, ashes, amen. Unless someone broke down and confessed, the truth would never be known.

I can’t believe we agreed to it, she thought.

They had let Clarissa persuade them. Basil hadn’t hesitated a moment. He’d said yes to her proposition at once. Yes, yes and yes again. Basil was in thrall to Clarissa.

Louise had dreaded hearing a voice calling the proceedings to a halt, commanding the coffin be pulled back and opened. Some plain-clothes policeman showing his badge and asking them all to leave the crematorium and stand outside while they checked Lord Remnant’s body.

Augustine had been the only servant there when Lord Remnant had been killed, but he might have told the other two – what were those two noisy black women called? Caresse and Sandra Dee. Both of them seemed to be married to Augustine. The three of them seemed to live together. Trios like that appeared to be common enough on the island of Grenadin. A legacy from the long years of slavery, no doubt.

Lord Remnant’s body had been taken away very fast. Basil and Dr Sylvester-Sale had carried him to his bedroom upstairs. Augustine had been talking about ‘the Master having a fit’. It had taken him some time to realize his master was dead, or that was the impression he had given. He had then broken down and cried like a child.

Louise was relieved to be back in England, but at the moment her mind was enshrouded in profound depression. She looked out of the window – at the dreary grey skies that presaged rain. Basil had insisted on taking the dogs out. He said he needed fresh air. The real reason, of course, was that he didn’t want to be with her.

The night before, she had decided to sleep with her feet away from the wardrobe since she had become convinced that the late Lord Remnant would emerge from the wardrobe, stretch out his hands and drag her in – back into hell, with him. She’d got it into her head that the wardrobe was in fact the gateway to hell.

The thought of those pale limp hands, last glimpsed crossed over the dead body, closing round her ankles made her shudder. According to some legend or other, male Remnants rarely found peace in death and tended to come back…

She had slept badly. She had had the most appalling nightmares, through which she had tossed and turned and sweated in horror; nightmares exploding with strange flaring lights and fires and the terrible cries of people being burnt alive. She had woken up hearing herself scream, and as she had come to her senses, she heard someone laugh, a triumphant kind of laugh. She was certain it had been Lord Remnant.

She and Basil had had separate bedrooms for quite some time now. She wondered if her irrational fantasies might have something to do with her husband’s refusal to share a bed with her…

Louise sat at her dressing table. The mirror showed a moon-shaped face surrounded by carefully arranged auburn hair – formless features – emotional gold-brown eyes. Her expression managed to be at once neutral and unrestrained. She lacked allure. Perhaps she should dye her hair blonde and start doing it differently – over the ears, in sibylline coils? No – her face was too puffy. She had a double chin. How she hated herself!

She had too many curves and protuberances. She should lose weight. She should take up skipping, or perhaps she should stop eating altogether. She felt a hot tear roll down her cheek. Inconsequentially, she remembered reading somewhere that cures for melancholy included ballroom dancing and scourging.

For some reason she couldn’t get Lord Remnant’s hands out of her head. There was something about Lord Remnant’s hands that troubled her…

The day Lord Remnant had died, 25 February, had become a watershed in her and Basil’s lives, a line of demarcation, or a point in time, rather, before which the world seemed to glow with a patina of innocence and clarity, contentment and health. Since then everything had turned murky and tortured and incomprehensible, bearing nothing but portents of greater darkness to come.

Louise had been to London the day before. It hadn’t been her day for London, but there was something she needed to do. A couple of things, actually. It would have been unwise to go to a local post office. Her lips twitched into a smile. She could be quite clever when she put her mind to it!

Lord Remnant’s hands – why did she keep thinking about Lord Remnant’s hands? As though she didn’t have enough on her mind! Well, they were the hands of a nobleman. Clean, well-tended, meticulously manicured, smooth. She couldn’t say what it was about them that filled her with such unease.

In some dim corridor of her mind the nebulous importance of the hands grew and grew…

* * * *

Dr Sylvester-Sale was on the telephone, talking in his low, well-modulated voice.

‘I couldn’t call you because I didn’t have my mobile with me. I’d left it at home. These things happen. I am really sorry. No, I am not lying. You’re not crying, Clarissa, are you? Oh God.’

‘You could have stayed with me. I needed you. The moment you disappeared, I felt unsafe. The ground shook under my feet. I can’t live without you, Syl. No sanctuary left, I kept thinking. No sanctuary.’

‘I couldn’t stay with you. You know I couldn’t.’

‘Why couldn’t you? Why?’

‘It would have caused comment.’

‘So what? I don’t care! Do you? Do you?’

‘As a matter of fact, I do, Clarissa. We agreed that we needed to be careful, didn’t we? Better to play it safe for a while… What was that? No, I am not going to “abandon” you, you silly girl.’ He glanced at his watch.

‘You intend to go off with one of your adoring lady patients, why don’t you admit it? You have a mistress. I am sure you have a mistress. She’s with you now, isn’t she? Some clever young girl. You like clever young girls.’

‘Now, listen carefully, Clarissa – take one of the sachets I gave you. It will calm you down at once. It’s getting rather late, so hop into bed. No, I am not trying to poison you. I am not trying to get rid of you. Do be sensible.’

‘Please, Syl – can you – can you come now? I need to see you. I must see you.’

‘I am sorry but that would be quite impossible.’

‘We must talk. About us. About the future.’

‘We are talking now.’

‘I can’t live without you.’

‘Apparently people kept ringing while I was away, leaving messages. I am under a lot of pressure. Hell of a lot to do.’ Heaven give me strength, he thought. ‘My secretary has been finding it incredibly difficult to cope. Devil of a backlog… No, I don’t feel greater sympathy for my secretary than for you. No, I am not having an affair with my secretary. Do try to understand – no, you can’t come to see me. I won’t open the door,’ he said desperately. ‘No, Clarissa. No. Out of the question.’

‘You are trying to get rid of me. You said once that I was given to emotional extremism.’

‘I never said that.’

‘You did! You would like nothing better than to be shot of my leech-like devotion, why don’t you admit it?’